


Happy Together

by FalCatrecon



Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Ernest Goes to Camp (1987), Justified, Open Water 2: Adrift, Skyward (TV 2017), The Agency (TV 2001)
Genre: Gen, a little terrorism, a lot of minor characters, camp fun?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-04-05 16:47:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19044418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FalCatrecon/pseuds/FalCatrecon
Summary: For @nongaberichbang’s bingo squares ‘minor roles’---------Brooks sighed heavily. As the newest counselor he was forced to act as help for others. Sure he had his own troupe, but the girls’ side of camp was out four counselors due to poison oak that had apparently grown inside the girl’s bathroom. Whatever. It meant he was stuck babysitting a bunch of little girls. Ugh.He stood outside Daisy cabin, half wishing the camp had never gone coed. At the same time he was just old enough to understand money made the world go ‘round and doubling the camp’s pool of children was a good idea. He looked at the roster in hand. He got stuck with a range of eight to twelve, and it looked like they assigned an older girl to help. At least he only had to be there to be the ‘adult’ in the group.He had barely hit the door to knock when it was yanked open and he was met with a short brunette and a glare. “Boys aren’t supposed to be over here.”“Yeah, normally.” He glanced down at his list. “You’re Piper, right? I’m your replacement counselor while yours is sick.”“Yeah, normally.” He glanced down at his list. “You’re Piper, right? I’m your replacement counselor while yours is sick.”





	Happy Together

**Author's Note:**

> Quick Note: Brooks is from Ernest goes to Camp, Sarah is James’ kid(Adrift), Jaci and Richie are Lloyd’s kids(CSI), Piper is Gary’s kid(Skyward), and Claire is Jed’s kid(Justified). You better know who Lex is by now. XD

Brooks sighed heavily. As the newest counselor he was forced to act as help for others. Sure he had his own cabin, but the girls’ side of camp was out four counselors due to poison oak that had apparently grown inside the girl’s bathroom. Whatever. It meant he was stuck babysitting a bunch of little girls. Ugh.

He stood outside Daisy cabin, half wishing the camp had never gone coed. At the same time he was just old enough to understand money made the world go ‘round and doubling the camp’s pool of children was a good idea. He looked at the roster in hand. He got stuck with a range of eight to twelve, and it looked like they assigned an older girl to help. At least he only had to be there to be the ‘adult’ in the group.

He had barely hit the door to knock when it was yanked open and he was met with a short brunette and a glare. “Boys aren’t supposed to be over here.”

“Yeah, normally.” He glanced down at his list. “You’re Piper, right? I’m your replacement counselor while yours is sick.”

She gave a massive, put-upon sigh and shoved the door further open. “Whatever. I can handle them myself.”

He snorted in humor. “Sure you can.” He earned an eyeroll as he stepped inside and looked around. Glancing again at his sheet and the nametags on the occupied beds, he nodded to himself. Looked like everyone was here and accounted for. He took a position near the front of the cabin and stood up straight, tucking his clipboard under an arm. “I am your counselor for the unforseeable future. Tracy is very sick, and until she recovers I expect you to treat me with the respect you showed her.” His eyes narrowed at Piper, who humphed somewhere in the middle of his speech. “Or better.”

The girls just stared at him for a long moment before the youngest, Sarah piped up. “Can we go outside now?”

Brooks looked again at the sheet, this time at their timetable. It was, in fact, their outside free period. They had been waiting on him before running off, apparently. He opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by a timid knock on the door.

One of the other girls, Jaci he guessed from the bunk she popped out of, ran over and pushed it open before he could even move. She was apologizing to the boy her own age on the other side for taking so long. Brooks coughed, getting their attention. He recognized Richie from his own cabin. “You aren’t supposed to be over by the girls cabins.”

Richie nodded sheepishly and pointed at Jaci. “My sister was missing.” 

Brooks glanced again at the sheet, recognizing Bryant now as her last name. So they were siblings, fine. “I’ll allow it this time, but you should have asked a counselor to come check.” Brooks attempted a scolding tone, and while Richie certainly looked abashed his sister wasn’t impressed.

A bright light and booming sound rocked the cabin, and Brooks immediately grabbed the two by the door and hauled them inside behind him. If the old handyman taught him anything it was quick reflexes from his fallout. He dropped to the floor and barked sharply, “Away from the windows.” The girls scrambled at the tone, at least listening to him now. He carefully peeked over the edge of the window, trying to gauge just what happened. Men were crawling the camp, rounding up the children out during free period. They had automatic weapons. He dropped his voice to a hiss, “Under the beds. Now.”

Most of the kids scrambled, but Piper gave him an incredulous look and peeked herself. Her eyes widened and she turned to help shove kids under beds. He kept an eye on the window until the kids were all hidden from sight. He and Piper kept low and made absolutely sure, tugging blankets down and pushing peeking feet until the room looked completely empty. He could hear talking getting closer, harsh words he couldn’t quite understand. He got into a silent argument with Piper about hiding too, which she finally relented when he lifted the lid on a trunk and pointed at himself. She crawled under her bed and he made sure she was hidden before quickly tucking himself away.

The voices stopped as they got closer, footsteps echoing on the tiny porch of the cabin. He couldn’t see anything from the trunk, and he hoped desperately that none of the kids moved. The footsteps creaked away, and he took a long, slow breath in relief. Whatever was going on he at least kept them all safe. When he couldn’t hear anything anymore he lifted the lid ever so slightly to peek. Nothing in the room at least, but he didn’t have a good view of the windows from inside. Should he risk it?

He nearly slammed the lid up into Piper’s face as she whispered the all clear right near his ear. He slipped out with a glare and looked through the window himself. The men had gathered the kids and counselors all over near the main buildings. One thing Daisy cabin had going for it, was that it was one of the outliers. He could hear muffled yelling, so scooted just a bit closer to the door so he could prop it open just a little, letting the sound drift in.

“Which is kid!” Broken english, thick accent. He couldn’t place it, but it wasn’t like he was a language expert or anything. Whoever they were, they wanted a particular kid. He looked back into the cabin at the kids slowly crawling out from under the bed. He gestured for them to stay down as he kept listening. Piper ignored him and was peeking out the window again.

The yelling got even louder somehow and they hauled one of the older counselors from the group. More questions to the group about the kid, whatever kid it was, before a sharp report from one of the guns echoed out. The counselor crumpled and Piper sunk to the floor, tears beginning in her eyes. Brooks felt the terror too, but kept watching for the children's sake. The counselor was alive. It was just his knee, thank god. He waved at Piper to get her attention and tapped his knee, and she nodded in relief when she understood.

He had to sit a long moment, listening to more frustrated yelling from the men. There wasn’t anything he could do for them in here, but he had to keep the others safe. A slow idea formed, reminding him of the terror they had rained down on construction workers a couple of years ago. He had walked all these woods time and time again, and knew exactly where the old campsite was and some of the out-buildings still stood. Probably didn’t have anything of use in them, but at least it would be away from the guns.

He gestured for the kids to come forward and circle round. He kept his voice very low. “There are men with guns out there. We need to stay completely quiet and close, I know a safe place.” He glanced around the room. “Grab your camping gear minus the tents and bags, plus anything you absolutely need. Quickly.”

The kids all broke apart to their parts of the cabin, Richie sticking to Brooks’ side. He took the time to dig through some of Tracy’s things, finding her camping things. It was at least more than he had before. Soon he had a small entourage of girls and he held a finger to his lips to remind them of quiet. He carefully peeked out the door, as the yelling had quieted. The men had herded the people into the buildings, probably the cafeteria as it was the only place big enough for the whole camp. There were a couple of guards, but they were walking together around the building. As soon as the rounded the far corner he quickly ushered the kids around Daisy cabin to the back and towards the woods.

He didn’t relax until he couldn’t even see the barest hint of the cabins. Piper hurried up to walk next to him. “What the hell was that?”

Brooks shook his head. “I have no clue.” He glanced back at the small handful of children under his care. “They were looking for someone. Wanted them bad enough to take an entire camp hostage.”

She too glanced back at the kids. “You have a plan?”

Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair. “No. Maybe.” He gestured further into the woods. They were long off the beaten path but he knew exactly where they were going. “There’s buildings people haven’t been to in years, they shouldn’t have any guys there.”

A soft drawl of a voice spoke up from behind them. “Those were automatics, not from ‘round here. Y’all got a rifle range, yeah?” Brooks turned to look at… well, he didn’t have his clipboard anymore but he was pretty sure her name was Claire. “Could probably hit them from the cabin.”

He shook his head, impressed if she could really back up that claim. “They don’t offer that anymore, too dangerous. If there’s even any of the gear left it’s back in the owner’s cabin.” She nodded quietly in reply, though did pull a rather large hunting knife out of her backpack and strap it to her belt loop.

Well then. Her bed had been sparsely decorated, but it had been covered in drawings and a little bit of girly things he had been pretty sure. The knife was a surprise because he was sure they had searched everyone’s things for stuff like that. If she was handy with a weapon he wasn’t going to complain, at least one of them was.

The beginning of the wire was the first hint he was on the right track, and the slowly rotting speaker was the second. He lightly patted it as he walked past, a nice reminder even if it had been a dangerous thing they had done. Hell, Pennington hadn’t been allowed to come back, no matter that the parents had muscled Ernest out of camp. Didn’t keep him away, but without a real, legal job he didn’t stick around past another year. He kind of missed both of them.

Not too far past that he could see the remains of the mining camp. Ragged tents and old construction equipment were scattered around, as well as burnt out remains of a couple of temporary buildings. “It looks like a warzone!”

Brooks looked over at the girls’ amazed looks and addressed Piper’s comment. “It kinda was.” He grinned. “The camp was bought out by some big construction company and we had to fight them off so they wouldn’t destroy the buildings.”

Jaci and Richie were giving twin looks of disbelief. Richie spoke up. “Wasn’t that dangerous?”

Shrugging, Brooks headed towards one of the burnt out shells. “Well yeah, but we were the stupid lead by the dumb.” He looked carefully over the debris, seeing if by any sort of chance some of the explosives had survived this long. Didn’t look it. Probably cleaned up anyway since it was a safety hazard near a children’s camp. He sighed and turned back to the rest of the equipment. “And if I can find anything, we might do it again.”

Claire gave a shrug at that and turned to dig around in a random pile herself. At least that was one kid on board. Richie and Jaci were still looking unsure, but Piper had wandered off to another building with Sarah in tow. He turned to wander over to another pile, but it was all just as deteriorated, left out in the rain and sun.

There was a whoop of excitement over at the far building that was partly intact and Piper excitedly waved him over. “We found a radio!”

Brooks jogged over. The building must have been the main office because there were miscellaneous paperwork and other office detritus. He found Piper and Sarah huddled over an old VHF radio base. Man they must have run the operation cheap, because this was much older than even the camp. Piper was starting to get frustrated and smacked the top of it. “It won’t work!”

“Scoot.” Brooks sunk down next to them by the box and fiddled with it. Obviously no power. He tilted it up and found the box screwed shut. He cast around a bit. This was a construction site, there must be screwdrivers somewhere. He hefted the box and headed outside to look just in case.

He nearly walked smack into the twins, who were hauling a tool box between them. “We found this!” The triumphantly dropped it in front of him. It looked a bit rusty, but whatever was inside might be fine.

“Thanks.” Brooks set the radio on the ground next to the box and looked it over. Yeah, it was rusted shut. He needed a tool to get to a tool. Great. He did a quick look around, catching sight of Claire near an old bulldozer. At least he knew where everyone was. The sudden clank next to him nearly made him jump, and he turned to watch Piper kick at the tool box again. 

She grumped at it and picked up a random piece of rebar, jambing the thinner side into the crack. She gestured to Sarah and the twins. “Hold the bottom down, would you?” They complied, Sarah a bit more enthusiastically than the other two. A good heft and something made a creaking noise. She turned and pointed at Brooks. “You’re heavier, help me.”

She had a point, so Brooks threw his weight on the back end while she continued to lean on the middle. There was another, louder crack and the lid crunched open. Good thing they didn’t need to close it again. She and Sarah traded a high five as Brooks surveyed the contents. A little rusty, but all he needed was to unscrew the radio to see what was wrong.

He settled on the ground with the screwdriver and carefully dismantled the shell of the radio and peeked in. Surprisingly intact. The only thing really wrong with it was the battery had busted and the connector was corroded from the acid. He shook his head. “I need a battery.”

Claire had wandered back over by then and perked up. “The ‘dozer won’t run, too dried out, but the battery was good.”

Brooks winced. “Well, I guess I could try. It’s not made for that type but we’re just looking for a way to call out.” He stood up and followed Claire over to the bulldozer, carrying the radio with him. He got it to nestle neatly next to the engine panel, which Claire had already pried open. He leaned over the battery compartment and gave it his own lookover. It was a stretch, but it wasn’t like they had another choice. 

He fiddled a moment with the wiring to the battery, carefully hooking it up to the radio. “Here goes nothing.” A turn of the switch and it flickered to life. He grabbed the handset and started to scan the frequencies. Not too much, but there was a sort of extra background noise on one. He stopped there. “Hello? This is Camp Kikakee, we need help.”

There was an answering scramble of a noise, with a faint “I told you,” before a much louder, “This is Lex, I read you. What’s the situation?”

Brooks replied, relief washing over him. Finally help. “Brooks. There’s a large number of men with guns,” 

Claire interjected, “Assault rifles.”

“Assault rifles. They were speaking really broken english, couldn’t tell an accent. Something about looking for a kid.” He frowned in worry. “They shot one of the counselors in the knee.”

“How many are you? Are you somewhere safe?” It was hard to tell over the radio, but behind Lex sounded like a heated debate about guns. Lex huffed and added, “Also are you sure about the guns.”

He looked over at Claire, who was staring daggers at the radio. “Positive about the guns. There’s six of us, five campers and I’m a counselor.”

There was mild swearing in the background which Lex seemed to ignore. “But are you safe?”

“Yes. We’re at an abandoned mining camp nearby where we managed to fix this radio.” He looked back towards the direction of camp. “Do… Do you have any news about it?”

There was a long sigh on the other end. “They’re looking for an important person’s kid. Unfortunately they’ve hit the wrong week.” He heard Lex shift uncomfortably and some papers being moved. “They won’t believe us.”

Brooks let out a long breath. He had an idea of what that meant. There was no bargaining chips if there wasn’t an actual kid. “Anything we can do?”

“‘Fraid not.” He could hear Lex sigh on the other end.

“Bullshit.” Piper leaned in. “We can’t just leave them trapped!” Brooks protested as she stole the mike from him and continued to yell down the line. “We could do something to distract them at least!”

“Look I-” Lex was cut off and a deeper voice sharply came through. “We are not sending in kids to do our work. Stay put, we’re coming to get you.” 

Lex was back on the line, and you could nearly hear the eyeroll. “Sorry. Stiles can be a bit of a hardass when kids are concerned. We are working on an operation to get you six out. Just wait there, help will be on the way.”

“Thanks.” Brooks set the receiver back on the cradle, turning off the mike. If Lex had more to say he’d be able to hear it, but he couldn’t hear them. “Hey gang, you have an idea or want to wait?”

The twins exchanged a worried look, but they looked back to Brooks expectantly. Sarah was looking to Piper. Claire shrugged. Piper however looked thoughtful. “We should help.”

The radio crackled in the meantime. “You’re too quiet. Don’t do anything too stupid, please.” 

Brooks couldn’t help a laugh escape at the pleading tone. Sure, taking the camp back wasn’t too stupid, right? “Well, we still need a plan, no matter how weird.” Chunking toilets and turtles with a bus-turned-catapult was weird enough as it was. Unfortunately that had been hauled back to camp and dismantled. He gestured towards Claire. “You know woods, right?” She nodded. “Can you be really quiet and get us more information?”

“With you maybe.” She tugged out her binoculars. “I know _my_ woods, not yours.”

Jaci and Richie were whispering together before offering up a pair of walkie talkies. “They’re short-range.” Jaci shrugged. “We can maybe reach the other side of camp to talk at night.”

He nodded and took one of the set. “Let’s go with channel 5, you be home base.” The nodded solemnly and clicked their walkie to the right channel as Brooks did the same. He looked to Piper. “If you think of anything, pass the word along. We need to know the lay of the land though.”

She nodded. “Be careful.” She looked back at the radio. “What do we do with them?”

He shrugged. “Whatever I guess. If you don’t want to be rescued yet and you see them, head that way.” He pointed into the forest towards camp. “Don’t go too far, but we’ll find you.”

Brooks patted Claire on the shoulder and they headed into the woods. He hadn’t noticed before over the other four, but she walked remarkably quiet. “Where’d you learn all this anyway?”

Claire smiled softly. “My daddy taught me to shoot and hunt. You gotta be quiet for that.” She slowed her pace, and the noise was almost perfectly gone. She picked her speed back up to keep pace. “Deer.” She gave him a curious look. “You?”

“Sneaking around camp really.” He laughed. “I’ve been going to this camp for years and got lost in the woods so many times before I learned them.” They passed the speaker again, and he patted it. She looked curiously at him for the movement. “I set it up. We played sounds to distract the workers before we launched stuff at them.”

She nodded sagely. “Cover the sound of your approach.” 

They fell into companionable silence, their walk only slowing when they got closer. Brooks turned the volume down on the walkie and slowly crept forward. They peeked around one of the trees near her cabin, spying the two guards still wandering around out front. They had stopped circling, which was a good and bad sign. It meant they had their guard down, but it also meant no one else was out wandering.

Their next movement was to carefully circle the edge of camp clearing, peeking occasionally. Another pair of guards were wandering the grounds, probably on the search for stragglers. He had no clue if anyone had told the kidnappers about Daisy cabin or not being missing. He hoped not. The guards weren’t paying much attention either, thankfully. No other guards outside they could see. As best he could remember from the invasion, there was probably around eight or ten people.

Brooks tapped Claire’s shoulder and gestured towards deeper into the forest. He kept quiet until they got far enough away, and even then he kept his voice low. “Four walking free, six inside?”

She nodded. “Sounds right. They aren’t good guards.”

They started to head back towards the mining camp and he pulled out the walkie. “Piper, any ideas yet?”

A different, but still familiar voice, crackled back through. “Where are you?”

“Uh. Hey Lex.” He shrugged at Claire. Hopefully the other kids were okay. “There’s four guards out wandering and six inside the cafeteria with the rest of the camp. The others okay?”

He heard a huff of annoyance through the interference. “Probably. According to Stiles they ran as soon as they saw the team.”

“I’ll find them. The guards outside are two around the cafeteria entrance and two walking the perimeter.” Brooks started to bee-line exactly where he had told them to go. “I’m pretty sure they want to help.”

“Yeah well, their parents are here and we…” There was a long pause, like he was at a loss. “...have a situation. Your bunch might be the focus, we’re not so sure anymore.”

“I’ll take care of them, promise.” Brooks pocketed the walkie, the tinny voice of Lex insisting they come in muffled by the fabric. All of Lex’s protests managed to do was speed up his pace. They reached the others quickly and he explained what he heard.

“Dad’s here?” Sarah looked longingly back into the woods from the direction they came. “Um.”

Piper just sighed. “Of course mine is. Sheriff Gary here to save the day.” She twirled her finger in the air sarcastically. Brooks gave her a disapproving look. She held up her hands in defense. “He’s my dad and I love him, but I’m not a damsel in distress. I can save myself.”

Sarah looked back at Brooks with confusion, like she was seeing something new. “What? Is something on my face?” Brooks ran his hand over his face as if wiping something off.

Sarah giggled and shook her head, which was what he was aiming for. “You kinda look like my dad a little.”

Like all random subjects brought up, suddenly all the kids were looking him over. He crossed his arms and looked off back towards camp in mild embarrassment.

Piper snapped her fingers and pointed at him. “I _knew_ you looked familiar! You look exactly like dad’s high school photo in the hallway!” Richie and Jack were nodding along in agreement, which was just kind of weird.

“His eyes.” Claire nodded too. “You are too easy to trust.”

“Not to burst your bubble, but aren’t you talking about four different dads here?” This was getting weird, and he was starting to suspect what the situation Lex was referring to was about. “One maybe, but all?”

Piper shrugged. “We’ll see after we rescue our friends.” She started to head the way Brooks and Claire had come from.

Brooks snagged her arm so she didn’t go far. “Careful. There were guards around and if it’s _us_ we should be extremely quiet.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah yeah, I’ll be fine.” To her credit she did slow down even with the attitude.

“Do you even have a plan? There’s ten of them with assault rifles and seven of us!” Brooks followed close behind, determined to keep them safe. If that meant following her back to camp, so be it.

She slowed even more with his words. “We could ambush some of the outer guards.”

“And then what? There’s six inside! We can’t tell what they’re doing. One of them might panic with an itchy trigger finger.” He nearly ran into her when she stopped.

She spun on her heel and got in his face. “What the hell am I supposed to do then? Just stand here and watch!?”

Brooks ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “I don’t know!” He missed being young and ignorant. The whole incident years ago could have gone horrifically sideways. They could have badly injured so many people including themselves. Hell, Ernest had nearly gotten shot if he hadn’t had the luck of the insane. He didn’t want to screw this up and doom the kids to some terrible shooting. He couldn’t think of anything to do without truly realizing the consequences. “I don’t want you hurt!”

Piper crossed her arms and glared. “You mean you don’t want to get into trouble. Those are our friends!”

“You don’t think the other counselors aren’t my friends too?” He pointed to Richie. “ _Our_ troupe is in there!” He started to pace while she continued to stare. “What do you think they would do if you were shot? How any of them would feel?”

Sarah reached up and wrapped an arm around Piper’s. “Don’t leave.” Those soft eyes seemed to melt Piper’s anger.

She looked back to Brooks. “Fine. What then?”

Brooks sighed and sunk to the ground. “I want to help, I do. That’s why I didn’t try to make you stay at the mining camp.” He pulled out the walkie and tossed it on the ground, where it still occasionally squawked with pleas to come back from Lex. “But I can also make sure you five are safe.”

Piper sunk to the ground next to him. “I always go and do what I need to do. And they need to be saved.” The others settled down next to them. Sarah stuck near Piper, not letting her out of her sight. Claire started to distract the twins with a couple of stories of her dad and his business. Piper looked the other kids over. “But I get your point.”

He shook his head. “I understand, I want to save them too.” He looked back in the direction of the speaker, though he couldn’t see it from here. “I want to be one of the heroes again.”

“Ugh.” Piper threw up her hands and reached for the walkie. “Growing up sucks.” She clicked the send button. “Jeez, you ever shut up? We’re coming in.” She handed the walkie back to Brooks and stood up with a sigh. “Let’s go.”

The other kids stood with her and she rolled her eyes at his confused look. She stuck out a hand. “Come on before I change my mind.”

He snorted at her and took her hand, getting up. It wasn’t like she could find her way back anyway. “Sure.”

They all wandered their way back to the mining camp clearing, finding only a couple of people still milling about, one of which had the other walkie. Sarah began to run to him, but slowed as she got closer. She waited for Piper to catch back up before finishing the walk forward. Brooks only minorly noticed that as he was staring at who assumed was Lex.

He was the last to step forward, another man trying to gather the kids together to head out. Lex gave an almost apologetic shrug. “I know, weird right?” He offered his hand. “Good to finally meet you.”

Brooks took his hand and shook. Normal hand, normal person, nothing earth-shatteringly weird. Just a guy who looked like an older him. Great. “Uh, yeah.” He looked back to the kids. “I guess we meet the dads now?”

Lex nodded. “Stiles! You got them?” The other man, Stiles, looked a little awkward trying to handle kids so Brooks walked over.

“Hey, they’re taking us to your dads. Cool it.” He got an eyeroll from Piper who had Sarah but Richie nodded solemnly. Jaci pretended to ignore him, but certainly settled down. Claire gave a nonchalant shrug, and Brooks noticed her knife was put away again. Good, best not get in trouble for that yet.

It was a bit of a walk, but the kids had apparently gotten used to it and followed along just as quiet as ever. Brooks could tell they were a lot more cheerful than before at least. He roughly kept pace with Lex, stealing glances. It was just weird knowing how he might look when he was older. Probably a trip for Lex too, seeing a teenager version of him. They came out of the woods near the road, a line of cop cars and vans scattered down it.

A cacophony of the children’s names came from ahead and a group of four men ran forward. Brooks stuck back by Lex and watched a mostly happy reunion for all of them. Piper’s dad did seem to be chewing her out, but there was obvious relief on his face. The twins’ dad was near tears as he held them close, while Claire was getting a long solemn hug. Sarah was drowned in a big, warm hug herself. It took a moment but finally one of the kids pointed back at him.

Brooks gave a small wave at the stunned look from the dads. All the same eyes, same facial structure. Yeah no, he could see Lex’s worry about it being them. Jaci and Richie ran up and snagged his hands, pulling him towards the group. He was quickly swamped with kids telling how he helped save them. He shrugged sheepishly. “The most I did was fix the radio. All of you helped.” He patted Piper’s shoulder. “Heck, half of you listened to her instead.”

The humbleness of his answer got a couple of smiles from the dads at least. The cop, Gary if he remembered Piper right, clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Thanks for taking care of her.”

Brooks gave him an incredulous look. “Her? _She_ didn’t need me.” He laughed. “She was in charge of base camp while we made sure about the situation.” Piper grinned at Gary’s huff at his words. Well, that’s how protective parents were so he wasn’t going to sweat it.

Claire had started to smile wide at the reminder of their recon mission. She tugged on her dad’s sleeve. “It was fun! I could have gotten them all.” Her dad had a strained smile in answer. She also pointed to Richie and Jaci’s dad. “They said he sold, by the way.” Richie and Jaci were nodding enthusiastically at her comment while their dads looked a bit awkwardly at each other. Not sure he wanted to get in the middle of that, whatever that was. He was distracted by Sarah’s dad coming up next, though he thought he might have heard something about growing too. Yeah, really probably shouldn’t know.

“James.” He got a soft smile with the outstretched hand. “Thanks for keeping an eye on her. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost her.”

Brooks shook his hand in turn. “She was attached to Piper’s hip, so you probably should thank her too.” He smiled back. “But I’ll take the thanks anyway.” That earned him a chuckle as James turned back to his kid again.

Brooks looked to Lex, who was still kind of outside the crowd. “Now what?”

I’ll do a pile of research.” Lex shrugged and wiggled his fingers. “I’m good at that. But in the meantime, I guess all of you will be housed somewhere safe and we’ll move in and rescue the camp?” He looked over to Stiles, who nodded in reply.

Brooks deflated a little. “Is there anything at all I can do?”

Lex tapped his chin in thought. “What are you good at?”

“I can rewire nearly anything, and passable with computers.” Brooks thought about the radio. “I just got a VHF radio to work from a 12 volt battery in a rusted out bulldozer. Somehow.”

Lex grinned and smacked a hand on his shoulder. “You get to help out the CIA.”


End file.
